


Artistic Differences

by GinAndShatteredDreams



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Art, Brotherly Bonding, Family Bonding, Gen, Halloween, Jack-o'-lanterns, Pumpkins, a little hurt but mostly comfort, artist woes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:56:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinAndShatteredDreams/pseuds/GinAndShatteredDreams
Summary: Ford plays a little prank on Soos and his tourist group which inspires some new ideas for the Mystery Shack.  Stan invites Ford to carve pumpkins with him for Halloween but begins to feel inferior to his brother again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> These are just some personal opinions about art and artists, not absolutes or facts. Everyone is, of course, allowed to have their own :D.

Crisp leaves rustled across the gravel path in a cascade of yellow and orange.  They crinkled and crunched beneath Ford's muddied boots as he strolled through swaying specks and splotches of blissfully warm sunlight.  He breathed deeply, feeding his nostalgia with the chilled breeze, the scent of pine, and the pure blue of the sky above.  He hadn't fully realized how much he'd missed his morning walks along the forest trails of Gravity Falls until September had swept away the thick and stagnant heat of August, the dipping temperatures tinting the trees with the vivid hues October was scattering at his feet.  
  
As the trail looped back to the Mystery Shack, he could hear Soos's voice, his words becoming louder and clearer with every step.  Through the clearing ahead, if he squinted hard enough, he could see the young man outside the Mystery Shack's museum door.  He looked remarkably like Stan in his Mr. Mystery suit and fish-adorned fez, his arms spread in over-exaggerated gestures as he parroted Stan's story of the haunted hedges along the forest trail.  Ford glanced down at a bramble of branches beside him and chuckled, imagining what a specter haunting it might look like, if it existed.   _Probably like a transparent tumbleweed of tangled thorns_ , he thought.  
  
The sight of tourists, yawning and slouching in response to Soos's story, sparked an idea within him.  He ducked behind a tree, waiting for the right moment in Soos's tale.  Just as he got to the line "And they were never heard from again!" Ford let out a ghoulish groan.    
  
"Psh.  That's just a sound system or something trying to scare us," said an overconfident boy who sounded no older than ten.    
  
"Uh...  Sorry to tell you this little dude, but I was the handyman here for years before taking over tours and we've never had the cash to install anything high-tech like that," Soos answered, the porch creaking under his feet as he backed toward the door.    
  
"He's probably right," a woman's snooty voice responded, "I mean look at this place.  It's practically falling apart."    
  
Ford pursed his lips at the comment.  How dare she insult what he'd built all those years ago and what his brother had created using that canvas (though, admittedly, partially by letting it decay).  He lifted himself from the ground, groaning again (although, this time, it was more from aching joints and the ghosts of injuries past than the intent to frighten tourists).  He allowed pine needles and leaves to rustle and crunch under his feet as he turned and pressed his stomach against the tree, the bark catching against the stitches of his sweater.  He reached out for the nearest branch and, with another eerie groan, shook it forcefully, careful to keep his hands and arms out of sight.    
  
The sudden clamor of feet scrambling onto the porch and into the museum left Ford pressing his hands against his mouth to stifle his laughter.  He made a mental note to ask for Fiddleford's help in creating a bit of mechanical ambiance for the shack.  Something about the idea of it looking so run down that no one would believe it hid technological marvels made a smile well up from deep within him.   _If only they knew about the basement,_ he thought. _I wonder if Stan will like the idea.  I'll have to ask him about it first._  
  
Once he'd pulled himself together again, he headed for the shack's back door to avoid meddling in Soos's tour any further.  The porch creaked under his boots as he trailed mud across the weathered boards and over the threshold.  He set his stride in the direction of the living room, imagining he'd find Stan in his favorite chair, but as he neared the kitchen door, a sloppy, squishy sound brought him to a halt.  He leaned inside to find Stan standing beside the kitchen table in his favorite undershirt and boxers, his arm elbow-deep inside a plump pumpkin.  On the table beside him was a large ceramic bowl and a second pumpkin, slightly taller and skinnier than the first, already hollowed out.  At his feet were three smaller, untouched ones.  
  
Stan glanced up and greeted him "Hey, How's it goin'?  Find any creepy, weird, or life-threatening things out there today?"  
  
"Not today, no.  But-" Ford paused as Stan's hand retracted revealing a large plastic scoop filled with pumpkin pulp and seeds.  He flung the scoop's contents into the ceramic bowl, derailing Ford's train of thought.  
  
"Stan, what are you doing, making a pie or something?"  
  
"Oh hell no," he laughed, "Last time I tried that it looked real pretty an' all but it...  let's just say I wouldn't'a fed it to Gompers.  No," he continued, pointing at the thinner hollowed out pumpkin, "I'm getting these ready to carve into jack o' lanterns for Halloween."  
  
"Oh, yes.  I suppose seasonally appropriate decor is necessary for business," Ford replied.  
  
"Yeah.  You uh...  you wanna carve one?"  Stan asked with a hopeful lilt.    
  
Ford chuckled to himself.  With orange splattered across his face and a dripping scoop held up in one hand, the wrinkles framing Stan's grin seemed to fade.  Ford's mind conjured an image of his twin as a stringy youth, his face smudged in dirt as he goaded him into doing something that was sure to get them grounded.  "Wow," he answered, "It's been a long time since I've tried."  
  
"Don't tell me you haven't done this since that time mom let us carve one," Stan said with a lifted eyebrow.  
  
"No I haven't," Ford answered with a shake of his head, "Wait.  You remember that?"  
  
"'Course I do!  We were ten and we started spitting the seeds at each other and kept pretending the pulp was its brains oozing out," Stan finished the tale in an over-exaggerated voice, like the narrator on a children's Halloween special, wiggling his gooey, orange fingers in the air.    
  
"Ha ha.  That's right.  She was still finding seeds under the stove at Passover!"  
  
"She was so angry that she banned us from ever trying it again!"  Stan laughed.  With a crooked grin and nervous trepidation, he repeated his question, "So what do ya' say?  Wanna give it a go?  We don't gotta spit seeds at each other or nothin' this time..."  
  
"What fun would it be if we didn't?" Ford replied, "Let me go find my carving tools and I'll give it a try."  
  
"Great!  Wait.  Carving tools...?"  A moment of hesitation left Stan's question hanging.  Ford had already left.   
  
He returned moments later with a wooden box whose once glossy cherry finish was scraped and cloudy.  He set the box on the table, the metal latches clicking as he unfastened them.  The lid lifted with a faint creak, revealing an assortment of professional wood carving tools nestled in the notches of a wooden slat within.    
  
"Leave it to you to be all fancy-schmancy about it," Stan grunted.    
  
"Oh, is this wrong?" Ford asked, honestly confused considering that the last time they'd tried this, they'd never gotten to the actual carving part.    
  
"No, lots of people use that stuff these days.  I guess I just like to keep things simple," Stan answered with a wave of his hand.  It seemed dismissive on the surface but his gravely, downtrodden tone added a defensive edge.  "Here," he said, sliding the thinner, hollowed out pumpkin across the table to Ford.  "You can have this one.  It's already cleaned out and ready to go," he continued, his voice chipper again as if he'd never been anything but happy.  
  
Ford opened his mouth to offer Stan the use of his carving kit but closed it quickly as his brother brandished a serrated knife and jabbed it into what he assumed was going to become his pumpkin's face.   _He's not even going to draw an outline or anything?_   Ford thought as the knife plunged into the pumpkin again.   _Well, alright then.  I wouldn't even know where to begin without one._  
  
The sun crept across the table as they worked, shadows lengthening in the afternoon glow.  Ford put off discussing upgrades to the shack with Stan, content to bask in the fresh breeze wafting through the screen.  The chill freed memories of autumn weekends spent at the beach, sitting on the deck of the gradually improving Stan O' War from beneath decades of layered rubbish, clearing the dusty hues of anger and grief from the image.  He glanced up and found what he imagined was a mirror image of his sloppy, concentration-crinkled smile on his brother's face as his knife sawed holes into one of the smaller pumpkins.  For a moment, he felt ashamed to have only finished one while Stan had prepared all of the others and nearly finished carving three.  As quickly as that thought materialized, another eclipsed it.    
  
He was sad they were so close to finishing.  The lowering angle of the sun brought him the same melancholy satisfaction of their childhood Sunday evenings, of thinking back on the fun of a weekend well-spent while his spirits sank with the acceptance that it was over then rose again at the thought of what the next weekend could bring.  Though they hadn't spoken much while carving, or maybe because of it, the afternoon had felt so much like the ones long passed; like they had never spent any time apart at all.  
  
_Well_ , he thought, _there's still one more left_.  With that in mind, he turned his completed creation to face Stan and said, "Voilà!"  
  
Stan looked up and was greeted by a triumph of craftsmanship.  Layers of carving revealed a fanged mouth, intricately detailed fur, and intense round eyes shaded and highlighted through different depths varying from cut straight through to barely scraping the surface of the skin.  He stared at it, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, unable to form any comments.  He wasn't sure what the beast was supposed to be but it looked incredible.    
  
"Is...  Is it alright?" Ford asked, feeling more and more certain he'd done something wrong with each silent second.  "It...  it's a Fangora rabbit from dimension *C1o1.  They're twelve feet tall and...  and...  this is wrong isn't it?"  
  
Stan snorted, words pouring out despite him begging them not to, "No.  It's perfect.  Of course it's perfect," he chuckled at first, his tone shifting to a dour mumble in disappointment in himself, "Of course yours is like a masterpiece."  
  
Ford tensed in his chair as Stan set down his knife.    
  
"I-I'm sorry," he offered.  
  
"You got nothin' to be sorry for," Stan replied, a sloppy hand resting on his forehead, "It's not your fault I suck at everything.  It's not your fault you're somehow magically good at it all."  
  
"Magically?" Ford muttered, part of him wanting to scream, " _I'm good at it because I practiced!  Because this is what I did instead of socializing.  Because this was how I coped with being the freak no one wanted to talk to!_ " but he bit his tongue, waiting for his brother to finish.      
  
"Mine may as well have been carved by a toddler," he muttered, barely audible.  He looked up to Ford, his expression raw and defeated, breaking his heart.  
  
_He never had the opportunities I did_ , Ford thought.   _They were taken away from him before anyone even gave him a proper chance._  
  
Stan's fist clenched and his volume increased as he added, "Next you're gonna tell me you carved that frilly-ass intricate... freaking... gorgeous door on your bedroom yourself or something!" he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and smearing streaks of orange across his shirt.  
  
Ford bit his bottom lip, blush rising in his cheeks from the angry compliment, from the sheer sadness of seeing his twin so upset with himself, degrading himself and his work, and from the guilt; the horrible, crushing guilt.   _Why does this always happen?  Why do I keep trying so hard to do well, thinking it will make something about my existence worthwhile, when all it's ever done was hurt people when I fail and make them feel inferior if I succeed?_   He wished he could slide down in his chair and under the table and maybe between the cracks in the floor until he was alone in the basement, where he felt he belonged, where couldn't hurt anyone else ever again through success or failure.  He wished he could say he didn't carve that door, or that there was some massive flaw in it, or that it wasn't very good but he sensed that none of those answers would be helpful.  Degrading work Stan thought was "intricate" and "gorgeous" sounded the opposite of effective.  
  
Stan raised his eyebrow in the absence of a verbal reply and spouted, "Holy hot cakes you did carve that yourself, didn't you?!"  
  
"Well, um..." he rubbed the back of his neck, the red deepening in his cheeks.    
  
"Ugh.  I give up," Stan threw his arms in the air, his chair scraping against the floorboards as he stood.  His posture hunched as he shuffled toward the door.  With a wave of his hand and the refusal to look back, he muttered, "You can finish mine.  Maybe you can make it look less like an abstract mess."  
  
"Stan?  Stan!"  Ford stood to chase after him but couldn't untangle his legs from the chair's nor the chair's from the table's fast enough.  "But abstraction is a great form of art" his voice trailed off, little more than a whisper.  He stood alone in the kitchen for a moment, arm outstretched after his brother before turning back to their pumpkins.  He fell into Stan's chair and looked over his brother's work.  His fingers traced the jagged cuts made by nothing more than a rusty, old, serrated knife. _What's wrong with these?_  He asked himself.  The designs used simple shapes to create stunningly horrifying eyes and mouths full of fangs.  His in-progress pumpkin looked as though it was terrified of something sitting to its left.  When placed beside the other two, it depicted a classic, pleasantly simple story of the fear of monsters in the night that anyone could understand and relate to.  
  
_These are incredible._  
  
He wasn't sure what his brother thought his opinions were.  He imagined it was less than good, but, if anything, he was envious of the raw emotion Stan's carvings portrayed and drew from within him, of the simplicity with which he could express such imagination.  He lifted himself from the chair and with his jaw stiffened in resolve, began searching for Stan.    
  
He found him slumped in his chair in front of the flickering TV, staring at it blankly.  He edged into the room.  Though he made no sound, from the way Stan shrunk in his chair, he was certain he was aware of his presence.  Even so, he ventured forward, his voice quiet and cracking as he began, "Stanley..."  
  
"You don't have to tell me I was doin' good or nothin.  I get it.  I get that you're better than me at this too."  
  
"No, I'm not.  If anything we're just...  Different.  I always wished I could come up with ideas people could relate to more.  I always wished I could stop being so obsessive about detail and being precise and show more emotion.   The only time I was able to was...  A time I'd rather not think back on.  So, how do you do it?  Please don't tell me you're in such a dark place..."  
  
"No no.  Nothin' like that.  Look.  I said don't worry about it.  You don't have to make things up to make me feel better."  
  
"But I'm not.  What you created  _is_  amazing.  And you did it so quickly with just that one old knife, and, unless you've taken drawing classes you've never mentioned, with nothing more than personal experience for training while I have a PHD in...  I mean...  Comparing our results would be like comparing an ink drawing created with precise pens by someone with years of training to one created with a broken stick...  Ugh, this is coming out all wrong," he said with a sigh, shaking his head.  
  
Stan shrank further into his chair, his brow lowered, making it clear he wished Ford would just leave him alone.  
  
But he couldn't.  He couldn't handle the idea of Stan feeling inferior again when he clearly wasn't.  He began again, trying to calculate his words, "What I mean is, the artist who can create without professional tools or training is just as valid as the one who has the advantage of them, just as an artist who values emotional expression over precise craftsmanship is no less of an artist.  Both are expressing something.  Both will be appealing to different people," when Stan didn't answer he continued, unwilling to leave soundless space between them, rambling on instead, "For example, abstraction is commonly looked down upon as something anyone can do but the arrangement of color and shape or the meaning behind the piece has the potential to evoke more emotion than the most realistic landscape, depending on who is viewing the piece," he sighed, realizing his wordy speech was likely making matters worse.  
  
Stan's hands gripped the arms of his chair and Ford was certain he should leave before saying anything else.  He turned and managed a few steps before feeling the need to add one last thing, "I've learned a hard lesson since we were kids.  I always thought I had to be the best at things to have a chance in this world.  But the truth is, life isn't a contest.  You don't have to be the best to be good."  
  
"But if it was a contest, you'd win," Stan answered in a barely audible grunt.  
  
"It would depend on who's judging," he turned back to see Stan give a derisive snort, still not tearing his eyes away from the Oversensitive Owl cereal mascot flapping around on the TV screen.  "If I were," he added with a light smile, "You'd win."  
  
"I don't need your pity vote."  
  
"I'm serious.  You conveyed classic imagery and told a story which a vast majority of people can relate to in a style that is uniquely your own."  
  
"But yours is..."  
  
"Mine is all craftsmanship which comes with years of experience.  It's well-crafted but it doesn't convey a relatable theme or message.  It doesn't have the understanding of this world and the people around us that yours does.  If you had the training..."  Ford sighed at himself, feeling his words and thoughts getting away from him again, "I mean...  Do you want to try the carving tools and see what you're capable of with those?"   
  
"I never had nothin' like that so I wouldn't even begin to know how to use 'em," Stan snorted, waving him away again.  
  
"Maybe I could teach you?  And you could show me how to get such emotion out of your work without the influence of a paranoid mental breakdown?"  He tried to joke, forcing a laugh.    
  
"You could do that?" Stan asked, lifting himself enough to face his twin.  "Do you think I could still learn?"  
  
"Maybe.  And maybe my stubborn old self still can too.  And, you know, even if it turns out that we feel we aren't good at learning something new," Ford stepped closer, the light playing across his gentle smile, "If there's anything I've learned in this lifetime, it's that you don't have to do things alone.  You don't have to be good at everything.  You have creative ideas that resonate with other people.  I have technical crafting skills.  If we put those together, just imagine what we could create."  
  
"You think so?"  
  
"Certainly.  So, what do you think?  Should we go carve that last one together?"  
  
"Alright, fine.  Ya' twisted my arm," Stan grumbled, pressing his hands into the chair's arms to lift himself from the comfortable dent in his cushion.  "Let's do this thing."  
  
****

The last of the evening light faded to electric blue as Stan arranged the completed pumpkins on the front porch.  He created a scene where Ford's intricate beast carving and his own two terrifying faces appeared to be threatening his frightened carving.  The one they'd completed together, which looked suspiciously like Stan, was positioned above the scene, as if ready to jump to the rescue.    
  
"Well, should we light them and see how they look?" Ford asked, pulling a matchbox from his coat pocket.  
  
"Light them?  As in candles?"  
  
Ford nodded hesitantly, sensing he'd referenced something obsolete once again.  
  
"Oh, that's a thing of the past.  There's these little battery operated lights that are much better now," he explained, digging in his own coat pocket.  "Here," he placed one in Ford's hand.  
  
Ford turned it over, finding a small switch on the bottom.  He toggled it on and watched as the tiny, candle-shaped light flickered in his palm.  "Fascinating," he concluded.  "And how did you know that trick about soaking the pumpkins in bleach water and sealing the edges with petroleum jelly to preserve them?"

"Online videos," he shrugged, holding out his hand for the light in Ford's, "Mabel showed me how to look things up."  
  
"Amazing," he mumbled, dropping the tiny, flickering light into Stan's palm.

Stan added the final light to the pumpkin which resembled himself and set the top back into place.  "There," he said, brushing his hands together and stepping back.    
  
"It looks great," Ford commented, his arms crossed as he admired their work.  "You know, Stan, for a while this afternoon, I started to feel like things were the way they were back when we were kids; back when we used to be able to sit in the same room and work on whatever we were doing and enjoy each other's company without needing to say a word."

"Hey now, don't go getting all mushy on me," Stan tapped his shoulder with his fist.  

"It's true, though.  I enjoyed creating something together again even if we did-"  
  
The door opened, interrupting Ford's sentiments.  Soos stepped out onto the porch, turning to find the source of the pumpkins' flickering glow.  
  
"Whoa, cool jack o' lanterns dudes," he remarked.  
  
"Thanks," Stan said, wrapping his arm over Ford's shoulder, "Turns out my nerdy bro has some crazy skills with carving tools."  
  
"Neat!  Heh, I guess that sort of explains the pumpkin seeds all over the kitchen.  How'd you get them to stick to the ceiling like that anyway?  And...  Why are they stuck in you guys's hair?"  
  
The twins turned to each other and laughed, taking in the sight of seeds clinging to their hair and clothes.  

"Sorry about that," Ford apologized, "We may have had a bit of a seed spitting contest while carving that last pumpkin."  
  
"Oh.  Heh, those are fun," Soos replied, his belly shaking as he laughed.  "Oh hey, Mr Pines?  I actually came out here to ask you something.  You know that story about the haunted hedges you told me to tell the tourists?"  He asked, his fingers fidgeting, "Do uh- Do you think it's true?"  
  
"What?" Stan raised an eyebrow.    
  
"Yes," Ford answered in a deadly serious tone, bringing an even more quizzical expression to Stan's face.  
  
"Ford, that was just something I made up-"  
  
"Oh but it isn't.  Those hedges are most definitely haunted.  I've seen and heard things out there myself but have yet to spot the otherworldly creature in order to document it."

"Yeah I totally heard it today!  When I was telling that story this morning, me and the tourists heard noises and the tree over there moved!"  Soos explained, edging back toward the door and the warm safety of golden light within the Shack.  "I -uh...  I'm just gonna go inside and get cleaning up the kitchen now."  
  
"Don't worry 'bout that, Soos, We'll clean it up later," Stan offered."  
  
"That's alright.  I'm just...  Going to go work on that right now," the end of his sentence muffled as the door shut behind him.  
  
Stan turned to find Ford snickering to himself.  
  
"Ford...?"  he stepped back, scrutinizing his twin.  "That was you he heard wasn't it?"  
  
Ford nodded.  
  
"Pffft," Stan tried to hold back his laughter but it bellowed out despite his best efforts.  His breath heaved as it slowed and faded.  He lifted his slightly fogged glasses to wipe his eyes and asked, "When did you become a prankster?  And helping Soos scare customers no less!"  
  
"Well, actually I wanted to talk to you about that," Ford answered, "When I first made a sound, a kid thought it was coming from a sound system, as if it had been planned."  
  
"Oh, that's actually a good idea..."  
  
"It is.  But what makes it better is that the crowd seemed convinced that a place like this wouldn't have anything so fancy," Ford's breath hitched as he realized he'd worded that wrong and made it sound degrading.    
  
"What do you mean, 'a place like this?'" Stan replied with a scowl.    
  
"Well, um, I meant," his hand fluffed through the white hair striped across the back of his head, freeing a few of the seeds tangled between the strands, "It's run down and everything looks thirty years old BUT that's a good thing!  It's actually a very good thing.  It's genuinely, authentically creepy.  And I, for one, think it would be hilarious to go ahead and add the technology people think we can't afford.  They'd never expect it.  We could hide it so well that they'd think everything is real.  It's already amusing that no one suspected the portal in the basement," Ford added with a light laugh, "If we're going to hide technology, it may as well be relevant technology."    
  
"So...  are you saying you want to work together on improving the shack?"  
  
"That's exactly what I'm proposing.  You could come up with ideas and design props and creatures, I could create them, and maybe Fiddleford could help us with the engineering aspect."  
  
"That actually sounds pretty great.  Those suckers- I mean customers will dump their pockets out to see it!  I'm in."  
  
"Excellent," Ford paused, glancing at the door, "Hey, Stan?  I feel kind of bad about not telling Soos the truth back there.  Should I-"  
  
"Naw.  He loves this sort of thing.  Let him believe it a little longer," Stan answered, briefly wondering if they should tell him at all.  It would definitely add to the tourists' experience if their guide believed everything was real.  
   
"If you say so," he said with a shrug and a shiver as his coat flapped around him in the chilled breeze.  "I suppose we should head back inside and help him clean up our mess.  Do you think we should turn those lights out?" Ford asked, pointing to the pumpkins.  
  
"Nah, let's leave 'em on for a bit.  I think you're right.  They do look good."   


End file.
